What We Ate on Holidays: Sri Lanka and the Maldives

We just got back from two weeks in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, and it was an amazing holiday. We stayed in some fabulous hotels, we saw some interesting sites and we ate some delicious food, which is the main part of what I am going to focus on today. 


If you asked me what we ate I would have to say buffets...lots and lots of buffets. They were available in every hotel for breakfast, lunch and dinner in both Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Some were better than others and they mostly had the same fare, especially at breakfast time. I am okay if I don't see another buffet for a while.

What they did have for the most part were really fantastic fruit options including juices, ranging from bananas to pineapple and mango juices and smoothies. I did wonder if I was going to come home with a tinge of pineapple yellow to my skin because I ate so much of it. It was just so delicious. 

One down side is that my phone died on day 2 of the trip so I lost all my photos from several trips which is a bit devastating. I take a lot more photos than my husband so his phone became our phone for the rest of the trip. It did mean that I didn't check emails, didn't post anything to social media. It almost became a forced break.

Once we arrived in the town of Negombo we spent our first day doing a walking tour of the fishing area and the fish market. It was interesting because whatever doesn't get sold at the fresh fish market then gets laid out on the sand and dried. This is then sold as dried fish across the world. This varies from tiny fish to even larger fish like sharks and rays. One thing though.....it was very smelly.

You might have thought that might put me off seafood, but no way! Our first lunch was in a beachside restaurant and I was right in there with prawns. The thing that surprised us though was the beers. It was hot and humid so we thought we would try one of the local beers. The bottles of Lion beers came to the table and we were all a bit shocked as they come in 625ml bottle sizes which is much bigger then we were used to. This is my friend Di who I met at bookclub many years ago and we travelled together with her and her husband George. 

After lunch we headed back to the hotel for cocktails in the pool, the first of many on this trip!

One interesting buffet that we did visit was on the fourth day when we visited the ruins of the city of Polonnaruwa in the morning and did an elephant safari in the afternoon. The lunch place we went to was a family run business where they made all different types of vegetarian curries. They helpfully place a visual clue as to what kind of curry it was. My favourite was the bread fruit curry. I do have a video of the curry selection but it doesn't seem to be working in Blogger at the moment.

The next day, after visiting the Dambulla Rock Cave Temple, we headed towards the city of Kandy. Along the way we stopped at a Spice Garden which was incredibly interesting where they grow everything from vanilla to cocoa, pepper, nutmeg and mace (which come from the same plant) and so much more. They also talked about the medicinal benefits of herbs, showed us how they crush herbs to make curry mixes (including how heating them changes the flavours) and then finished up with a neck and head massage. Well, most people got both massages. I just got the neck massage. Really, what they were trying to do was sell you some natural medicine packages and, yes, we succumbed. It felt like every single spice had medicinal properties that would have done me some good!

After Kandy, we headed up into the tea plantations which is one place I was really looking forward to, and it didn't disappoint. I was glad that we were being driven in the bus and not having to drive ourselves because the roads were windy and narrow, there were stray dogs, people, tuk tuks, cars, motorbikes and buses on the roads. The views were spectacular with all the tea bushes looking almost like a textured carpet on the side of the mountains. 

While there are still many working tea factories, quite a few have been converted into tourist related businesses. we had lunch at one which was very close to a big waterfall and the hotel we stayed at was a beautifully converted tea factory. We did, however, stop at a working tea factory called Labookellie which was really interesting. We got a tour of the various processes and then got a taste testing of white tea, green tea and then black tea, which all come from the some plant but either different leaves are picked or the leaves are treated differently to give different results 

I mentioned the hotel where we stayed. Wow! What a place. We stayed in some fantastic hotels, but I think this was my favourite.  It was so beautifully converted with lots of the history of the place kept for hotel guests to enjoy. Even the buffet counters were made using old tea chests. Even the little bottle of shampoo and body wash were in tiny little tea pots. In the garden there was a small cottage. What I didn't realise until we wandered up to it in the morning was that it was a small tea factory which produced tea for the hotel using the tea that had been picked on the property. 

Every time we go on holiday, we try to do something foodie. Whether it be a walking tour in Paris or Soweto, or a wine tasting class on a cruise. Originally we were thinking we would try to do a cooking tour in Galle but in the end our foodie experience this time was a seven course meal in a train carriage! At the hotel, which is called Heritance Tea Factory, there is a train carriage which has been repurposed as an intimate restaurant. There are four booths available in the train, and they have thought of everything. Each course in the menu is named for a train station on the journey between Kandy and Ragala. The carriage is rigged up so that it moves around as if the train is going down the tracks, there is recorded history that is shared, the main waiter is dressed as a conductor and blows whistles and waves flags around at different points in the meal. When the main course comes out it is covered in cloches and the conductor and his assistant come and theatrically removed the cloches crashing them together like cymbals. And the food was really great too.

For most courses there was a choice of two options. I had

Tea gravlax

Tea smoked cauliflower cream (Soup)

Grilled prawns

Icy citrus Berry (as a palate cleanser)

Duo of Lobster (Thermidor and grilled)

Rhubarb Crumble Tart

Cheese platter

It was a really fun experience.

Our last night in Sri Lanka we were in Galle and we had a memorable meal too! There was a restaurant quite close to the hotel which was recommended to us and it had such a great vibe! It was right on the beachfront and it was a beautiful night. The cocktails were great, there was a really good musician singing and playing the guitar (believe me we heard some not so great ones on our travels), the company with old and new friends was great, and the food was fantastic. I chose to have jumbo prawns. I have never seen prawns as big as this. They were probably 25cm long. A comment was made that they didn't have much meat in them, but I was happy. There was pure joy in having that plate of food placed in front of us! If you are ever in Galle then check out Shelter. 

I think my favourite food discovery in Sri Lanka was something called hoppers. I had heard of them before so knew that I wanted to try them but I ended up eating them wherever they were available. Hoppers are made from rice flour and coconut milk and they are cooked in special frying pans which are very hot. They were available in most of buffets at breakfast, and you could either have them plain or with egg. The edges are very crispy and then there is a fluffy middle. They are very versatile as you can also have them with jaggery for a sweet treat, but they can also be savoury. I tried a beetroot one at one of the dinners which was good too. I have a video of one being made. Hopefully I can add it in later. 

From Sri Lanka we took a quick flight to the Maldives and then, unexpectedly a sea plane flight to our resort. Our original resort would have been a boat ride but their overwater bungalows were damaged in a storm so we were sent to a different resort which was further away. The resort was amazing. It was all inclusive so it was buffets for breakfast, lunch and dinner (albeit with different themes for dinner). We snorkelled, swam and generally chilled in this amazing place. On our last night, the resort organised a sunset cruise for us which was a great way to finish our holiday before doing the three flights back to Melbourne. 

There is so much more I could talk about. I haven't even mentioned the egg samosas we had on the bus as a snack one day. It was an amazing holiday and I am so glad we went. Both countries exceeded our expectations!

And the picture at the top of the post? Meet our new travel companion Ella the Elephant who we picked up in Sri Lanka. We used to have Dino the Rhino but unfortunately he escaped along with all the contents of a backpack we left on a train in Japan, so we had to get a new travel companion.

Weekly meals

Saturday - Chicken schnitzel rolls
Sunday - BBQ Steak and salad
Monday - Pork chops, mash and beans
Tuesday - Baked Tuscan chicken
Wednesday - Out for dinner
Thursday - Mexican chicken and beans
Friday - Spicy pork and beans stir fry

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